Yeh! The old Celica sailed through her
MOT this morning. I love her!

High Waving Heather
Emily Brontë

High waving heather, 'neath stormy blasts bending,
Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars;
Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending,
Earth rising to heaven and heaven descending,
Man's spirit away from its drear dungeon sending,
Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.

All down the mountain sides, wild forest lending
One mighty voice to the life-giving wind;
Rivers their banks in the jubilee rending,
Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending,
Wider and deeper their waters extending,
Leaving a desolate desert behind.

Shining and lowering and swelling and dying,
Changing for ever from midnight to noon;
Roaring like thunder, like soft music sighing,
Shadows on shadows advancing and flying,
Lightning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying,
Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.

My ladyboys are almost fully grown.

The last pit ponies, Wheldale colliery, 1972.

The Ponies
Wilfred Gibson

During the strike, the ponies were brought up
From their snug stables, some three hundred feet
Below the surface - up the pit's main shaft
Shot one by one into the light of day;
And as each stepped, bewildered, from the cage,
He stood among his fellows, shivering,
In the unaccustomed freshness of free air,
His dim eyes dazzled by the April light
And then one suddenly left the huddled group,
Lifted his muzzle, sniffed the freshness in.
Pawed the soft turf and, whinneying started trotting
Across the field; and one by one his fellows
With pricking ears each slowly followed him,
Timidly trotting: when the leader's trot
Broke into a canter, then into a gallop;
And now the whole herd galloped at his heels
Around the dewy meadow, hard hooves, used
To stumbling over treacherous stony tramways
And plunging hock-deep through black steamy puddles
Of the dusty narrow galleries, delighting,
In the soft spring of the resilient turf.
With a soft thunder of hooves,the sunshine flashing,
On their sleek coats, through the bright April weather.
They raced all day; and even when the night
Kindled clear stars above them in the sky
Strangely unsullied by the stack which now
No longer belched out blackness, still they raced,
Unwearied, as through their short sturdy limbs
The rebel blood like wildfire ran, their lungs
Filled with the breath of freedom. On they sped
Through the sweet dewy darkness; and all night
The watchman at the pithead heard the thudding
Of those careering and exultant hooves
Still circling in a crazy chase; and dawn
Found them still streaming raggedly around,
Tailing into a lagging cantering,
And so to a stumbling trot; when gradually,
Dropping out one by one, they started cropping
The dew-dank tender grass, which no foul reek
From the long idle pit now smirched, and drinking
With quivering nostrils the rich living breath
Of sappy growing things, the cool rank green
Greatful to eyes familiar from their colthood
Only with darkness and the dusty glimmer
Of lamplit galleries......

Out of the Morning
Clive Sansom

Out of the morning, grey as smoke,
Grey fields, grey sky,
The sudden stroke of heavy wings,
The sudden shock of white on grey,
A wild swan flying.

It came so sheerly from the mist,
Annunciation-Angel-like,
It shook the centre of my world,
It broke the greyness of my mind
Like great winds crying:

It woke all colours in the grey,
It spoke of speed and strength and power,
It told the beauty of the seed-
The core within the core of life-
In dead weeds lying;

My thoughts were shattered into light,
My heart was lifted into song;
I was that sudden stroke of wings,
I was the shock of white, the bird,
The wild swan flying!

Epitaph For an Airman
George Nichols

The shouting wind shall be his requiem,
The falling star his lofty monument;
No earthbound pangs can honour add to them
Who seek their honours in the firmament.

The light of dawn shall be his votive flame,
The purple cloud of dusk his canopy;
Who lived and died with dusk and dawn may claim
No lower tribute than this panoply.

His guiding stars shall now his bearers be
In mute procession through the mourning skies-
Partaker now of that high mystery
He could not share till death had made him wise.

Tonight's Sunset

Love Not Me for Comely Grace
John Wilbye

Love not me for comely grace,
For my pleasing eye or face;
Nor for any outward part,
No, nor for my constant heart:
For those may fail or turn to ill,
So thou and I shall sever.
Keep therefore a true woman's eye,
And love me still, but know not why;
So hast thou the same reason still
To doat upon me ever.

Happy Birthday James!
Hope that you have a brilliant day,
with love from Elaine x

If ever you are feeling unhappy, try watching this.

Works for me!

After
Richard Elwes

And after-
the laughing done, there follows in its place,
gentle and soft and warm,
a rippling, sunlit calm;
the smiling peace, the dear tranquility
dawns in your face
and hovers over me so tenderly.
O stay! O will you never stay?
Dissolving wraith by day,
by night retreating dream,
never remaining,
fading, waning,
becoming dimmer,
soon but a glimmer
the darkening gleam,
that was, a moment since, your eyes,
the gleam that dies
and vanishes and will not shine,
for all the gathering mists in mine.

Sometimes With One I Love
Walt Whitman

Sometimes with one I love I fill myself with rage,
for fear I effuse unreturn'd love,
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love,
the pay is certain one way or another,
(I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return'd,
Yet out of that I have written these songs.)

One Hour To Madness And Joy
Walt Whitman

One hour to madness and joy! O furious! O confine me not!
(What is this that frees me so in storms?
What do my shouts amid lightnings and raging winds mean?)

O to drink the mystic deliria deeper than any other man!
O savage and tender achings!
(I bequeath them to you, my children,
I tell them to you, for reasons, O bridegroom and bride.)

O to be yielded to you, whoever you are, and you to be yielded to me,
in defiance of the world!
O to return to Paradise! O bashful and feminine!
O to draw you to me, to plant on you for the first time the lips of a
determin'd man!

O the puzzle--the thrice-tied knot--the deep and dark pool! O all
untied and illumin'd!
O to speed where there is space enough and air enough at last!
O to be absolv'd from previous ties and conventions, I from mine, and
you from yours!
O to find a new unthought-of nonchalance with the best of nature!
O to have the gag remov'd from one's mouth!
O to have the feeling, to-day or any day, I am sufficient as I am!

O something unprov'd! something in a trance!
O madness amorous! O trembling!
O to escape utterly from others' anchors and holds!
To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous!
To court destruction with taunts--with invitations!
To ascend--to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me!
To rise thither with my inebriate Soul!
To be lost, if it must be so!
To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom!
With one brief hour of madness and joy.

Snowfall
Hamish Brown

When the first snows come
It is like quiet benediction,
The service over.
We shuffle out, at peace,
Cleansed from civilisation
And the year done.
We look out on drifting purity
As strangers from another age,
Misunderstood.
For a world impoverished, this we know:
That truth has stood.

Tonight I Can Write (incomplete)
Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Sonnets of War
Richard Elwes

The melting waters move and flow again,
and Life's awakening pulse is everywhere,
responsive, stirring in the souls of men.
And Spring's heroic song is in the air,
sounding her deathless, ancient certainties:
that valiant hearts were never vainly stilled,
that truth must ever triumph over lies,
that martyred blood was never vainly spilled.
As heirs of an immortal chivalry,
advancing bravely down the storied years,
we take our places in their company
and catch her message with their dauntless ears.
For Life itself is with us in the field,
who call on perjured tyranny to yield.

Christmas Eve Sunrise

GIFSoup

The Song of Love
Ludwig Lewisohn

How shall I guard my soul so that it be
Touched not by thine? And how shall it be brought,
Lifted above thee, unto other things?
Ah, gladly would I hide it utterly
Lost in the dark where are no murmurings,
In strange and silent places that do not
Vibrate when thy deep soul quivers and sings.
But all that touches us two makes us twin
Even as the bow crossing the violin
Draws but one voice from the two strings that meet.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what great player has us in his hand?
O song most sweet.

it may not always be so
e e cummings

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another's face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;

if this should be, i say if this should be --
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

Oh, look who it is! Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

Fain would I wed
Thomas Campion

Fain would I wed a fair young man that night and day could please me,
When my mind or body grieved, that had the power to ease me.
Maids are full of longing thoughts that breed a bloodless sickness,
And that, oft I hear men say, is only cured by quickness.
Oft I have been wooed and praised, but never could be movèd;
Many for a day or so I have most dearly lovèd,
But this foolish mind of mine straight loathes the thing resolvèd;
If to love be sin in me, that sin is soon absolvèd.
Sure I think I shall at last fly to some holy order;
When I once am settled there, then can I fly no farther.
Yet I would not die a maid, because I had a mother,
As I was by one brought forth, I would bring forth another.

i carry your heart with me
e.e.cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Who Ever Loved That Loved Not at First Sight?
Christopher Marlowe

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;

And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows; let it suffice
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

My Love Was Warm
Robert Louis Stevenson

MY love was warm; for that I crossed
The mountains and the sea,
Nor counted that endeavour lost
That gave my love to me.

If that indeed were love at all,
As still, my love, I trow,
By what dear name am I to call
The bond that holds me now.

As we never forget a loved, lost pet and because James has recently mentioned Fusker again, here's a couple of paragraphs from his Telegraph column...

"My Top Gear colleagues think it terribly funny that I once proclaimed that I loved my cat, Fusker, above all else; more, even, than my old Bentley. But, so help me, I do. Before anyone writes in with some cod psychology and any nonsense about me projecting on to a dumb animal, I am well aware that Fusker does not love me. He loves cat food.

The flow of adoration runs in one direction; I spend hours talking to him, even though the only word he might possibly understand is "Fusker", and in return not one sound of any consequence has ever emanated from his witless furry face. He has never passed me a spanner or written any of this column, except for a bit that went fasdfij ffeug djdvbv9821."

And I will bring back this...

'I took a chair and threw it...'
Felix Dennis

I took a chair and threw it
Across my unmade bed
When I returned one evening,
To find my old cat dead.

Yet when an ailing neighbour
Passed on - no missiles flew.
The ties that bind are stronger
Than what we tie them to.

There is a Gentle Thought
Dante Alighieri

There is a gentle thought that often springs
to life in me, because it speaks of you.
Its reasoning about love’s so sweet and true,
the heart is conquered, and accepts these things.
‘Who is this’ the mind enquires of the heart,
‘who comes here to seduce our intellect?
Is his power so great we must reject
every other intellectual art?
The heart replies ‘O, meditative mind
this is love’s messenger and newly sent
to bring me all Love’s words and desires.
His life, and all the strength that he can find,
from her sweet eyes are mercifully lent,
who feels compassion for our inner fires.’

Futility
Wilfred Owen

Move him into the sun--
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it awoke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds--
Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved,--still warm,--too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
--O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

Time Lapse Return to Earth from the Space Station

http://fragileoasis.org/blog/2011/11/coming-back-down-to-our-fragile-oasis-2/

I was downloading images from my camera today
and was pleasantly reminded of a Derbyshire summer.

If you follow the line of the distant hills from left to right till they peter out, the village just noticeable below them is Peak Dale, where I spent my childhood. A country child.

A quote from the lovely Liz Smith...

"One of the best parts of growing older?
You can flirt all you like since you've become harmless."

The Tryst
Walter de la Mare

"O whither are you faring to, my sweetheart?
How far now are you journeying, my dear?"
"I am climbing to the brink of yonder hill-top,
Naught human far or near."

"And what will you be seeking there, my sweetheart?
What happy scene is thence surveyed. my dear?"
"Twill be night-tide when outwearied I come thither,
And star-shine icy clear."

"But what will you be brooding on, my sweetheart?
What fantasies of darkness will appear?"
"My self will keep a tryst there - bleak and lonely -
My own heart's secrets I shall share."

"But what will be the manner of your greeting?
What word will you then whisper - no one near?"
"Ah, he who loved me once would know the answer,
Were he still true, my dear."

 /\„,„/\

( =';'= )

/*♥♥*\

(.|.|..|.|.)

Friendship
Elizabeth Jennings

Such love I cannot analyse;
It does not rest in lips or eyes,
Neither in kisses nor caress.
Partly, I know, it’s gentleness

And understanding in one word
Or in brief letters. It’s preserved
By trust and by respect and awe.
These are the words I’m feeling for.

Two people, yes, two lasting friends.
The giving comes, the taking ends
There is no measure for such things.
For this all Nature slows and sings.

The Seed-Shop
Muriel Stuart

Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,
Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,
Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -
Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams;
A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust
That will drink deeply of a century's streams;
These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death,
Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;
Here I can blow a garden with my breath,
And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

A lovely 'May Day' yesterday with two booksignings in London, plus Top Gear Live last Sunday.
I'm still in a state of slight euphoria. Thanks James x

I have a large clock on my computer homepage - when I looked up at it this morning, it read Eleven minutes past eleven. I tried to print screen it but it had already moved to 11:12, darn.

Still, at least I saw it when it said 11:11 on the 11/11/11

p.s. got it in the evening...

For the Fallen
Laurence Binyon

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables at home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

Sonnet: Beauty Of Her Face
Dante Alighieri

For certain he hath seen all perfectness
Who among other ladies hath seen mine:
They that go with her humbly should combine
To thank their God for such peculiar grace.
So perfect is the beauty of her face
That is begets in no wise any sigh
Of envy, but draws round her a clear line
Of love, and blessed faith, and gentleness.
Merely the sight of her makes all things bow:
Not she herself alone is holier
Than all; but hers, through her, are raised above.
From all her acts such lovely graces flow
That truly one may never think of her
Without a passion of exceeding love.

Toy Story
-------------
The Flying Scotsman,
On miles of rail,
A little Lilliputian on the Tarka Trail.

A gulp of sentiment,
A shout of joy,
Pride in the endurance of a childhood toy.

It was coming home,
It had made it through,
For the Toy Story man and the child that knew.

Elaine x

They are selling four foot Concorde replicas, made out of wood, on eBay. That's your first e-present for Christmas!

Feeling emotional having just watched the Edge of Space clip...

In Memoriam
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Dear friend, far off, my lost desire,
So far, so near in woe and weal;
O loved the most, when most I feel
There is a lower and a higher;

Known and unknown; human, divine;
Sweet human hand and lips and eye;
Dear heavenly friend that canst not die,
Mine, mine, for ever, ever mine;

Strange friend, past, present, and to be;
Loved deeplier, darklier understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee.